Modern Vespa

A few months back, I started looking around for a jacket to wear during my insanely long commute to work. As winter was fast approaching (update: it's here now!) the jacket had to be waterproof. It also had to be everyday comfortable, and could not require that I stop and zip in a liner, or pull on a shell, or whatever. I wanted a jacket that would get me through the unexpected rain showers as well as the expected ones, and still be comfortable enough to wear when the sun was shining.

My attention, naturally enough, wandered to the exotic: the Aerostich Transit Jacket, while insanely expensive, seemed to be exactly what I was looking for. Like most waterproof gear, the Aerostich Transit Jacket is internally waterproof due to an inner Gore-Tex membrane. What makes the Transit special, though, is that the jacket is also externally waterproof, due to some specialized leather treatments. Aerostich claims that this keeps the jacket from soaking up water and getting heavy. On top of that, the jacket is actually breathable, owing to the inner Gore-Tex layer and the perforated nature of the outer leather layer. Mind you, the perforations aren't there to let airflow into the jacket, they're just there to let the Gore-Tex breathe out moisture. As if all that weren't enough, Aerostich also claims that the Transit wears cooler than a normal black jacket due to an additional UV-reflecting treatment of the outer leather. What's not to like?

The problem, of course, is that I couldn't try one on. Aerostich only sells their gear through the mail, and I wasn't about to fly to Duluth, MN just to try on a jacket. So I did some research, and found a relative dearth of reviews. Because I was really desperate for some rain gear, I decided to go out on a limb and try it. After all, Aerostich is widely reputed to be very good about taking stuff back, exchanging sizes, and so on. Their customer service is fairly legendary.

The Aerostich gear is sized approximately according to US suit sizes. My first attempt at finding the right size, then, was to start with a known reference point: I wear a size 60 in all my Dainese jackets. That's a European size, of course, but the standard conversion between European and US sizes (at least in mens sizes) is to subtract 10. Thus, my Dainese 60 translated roughly to a US 50.

Not wanting to just blindly pick a random number out of the air and convert it, though, I decided to call Aerostich. The common wisdom about Aerostich is that their phone support staff are really good at sizing you. So I called, the woman on the other end of the phone asked me a few questions (height, weight, chest size, suit size) and came up with her recommendation: 48. Honestly, though, she didn't seem too invested in getting it right. Actually, she sounded stoned. Maybe it's just boring up there in Duluth. I opined that I had fairly broad shoulders, and most jackets that should fit me end up being tight across the shoulders. I tried to inquire about whether the jacket ran large or small, how the shoulder width compared to other jackets, etcetera. She wasn't actually very helpful in this regard. I was surprised and disappointed that the legendary Aerostich phone service was extremely un-helpful in helping me gauge how one of their jackets would fit.

So, foolishly, I ordered the 50, expecting my shoulder width to be a problem. Despite the unhelpfulness of the Aerostich phone rep, she did suggest a 48, and I ordered a 50. I take full blame for ignoring her advice, although with the caveat that she didn't actually sound like she knew what she was talking about.

So fast forward a week or so, and my jacket arrives. I rush home, try it on, and am sadly disappointed that it is much too big. The jacket itself is very well made, but it is so massively big that I wondered how I could have made such a blundering mistake, and how the Aerostich vs. Dainese sizes could be so massively different from one another.

This is a good point to mention a nice detail of ordering clothing from Aerostich: they include an RMA form right in the box. Just fill it out, package it up, and send it back, with instructions about whether you want to exchange, refund, or whatever. I did just that, deciding that I would now use the fine advice I had been offered, and specified an exchange for a size 48. I shipped it off, insured for the exorbitant price of the jacket, on my own dime.

Fast forward another two or three weeks, and my replacement jacket arrives. I rush home, try it on, and am again disappointed that it is still much too big. Not only did my shoulders have plenty of room, I could have worn a set of linebacker shoulder pads under the suit. I may have flubbed the first sizing, and take full blame for that. I was now wearing the size that Aerostich recommended, and still no love. In addition to the seemingly ridiculous massive shoulders, the arms were apparently long enough for an orangutan. Even when in the outstretched-arm riding position, the arms were much, much too long. Because the Aerostich Gore-Tex-bonded-with-leather design was so stiff, the long arms also meant that the very tight cuffs at the ends were literally digging into my hands in every position I cared to try. The sleeves were extremely unforgiving in this regard. No bunching, no give, just straight-on torture to the hands via the cuff.

So again, I packaged it up and shipped it off, insured for the exorbitant price of the jacket. On my own dime. I asked for an exchange for a 46 this time.

Fast forward what seemed like months (but was probably only two or three weeks) and my second replacement jacket arrives. I rush home, try it on, and... hey! This jacket almost seems to fit me! The torso is snug but not uncomfortably so, the shoulders are, well, still too wide, but somewhere close to acceptable, and the length of the jacket now seems to fall at my waist about where I would expect a leather motorcycle jacket to fall. There is still one fatal flaw, though: the arms are still too long, too stiff, and are still unmercifully attempting to gouge my hands.

I can hear you all saying "But... it's leather! It will break in!" And you'd be right, if it was just leather. However, this isn't just plain leather. It is heavily treated leather, bonded with Gore-Tex. I'm guessing that the extreme stiffness of this jacket is due to the bonded nature of the material. For the engineers out there: think second moment of inertia. Yes, this jacket is apparently made out of steel I-beams.

I debated this point long and hard. Will it break in? What if it doesn't? If I go out riding in this jacket, my chances of returning it for a full refund are vanishingly small. For the amount of money that this jacket costs, I decided that I should really love it. And I just didn't. Helpfully, Aerostich includes a small reference manual for this jacket. At the beginning it says (quoting from memory): "Your Aerostich Transit Jacket should be comfortable from the first moment you put it on". Well, that clearly wasn't the case for me, and this, then, was clearly not my jacket.

For the third time, I packaged it up and shipped it off, insured for the exorbitant price of the jacket. On my own dime. I asked for a refund this time, and Aerostich happily obliged. I feel bad, actually, because even though I'm out a bunch of money just for shipping the damn thing, Aerostich is too. So it sucks for everyone.

I didn't ever get the chance to ride in this jacket, so take everything here with a grain of salt.

The jacket itself is obviously extremely well made from the moment you lay eyes on it. Aside from the outlandish sizing issues I experienced, I found the cut of the jacket to be extremely pleasing. It is a simple jacket with nice lines and superb details.

The leather is thick and well finished. The zippers are excellent, and are claimed to be waterproof. In addition, there's a flap just inside the main zipper that acts as a secondary shield against wind and rain. One detail I found annoying is a small velcro tab at the bottom of the main zipper. This repeatedly seemed to prevent me from unzipping the jacket (e.g. to remove it) until I remembered that I also had to open that tab. I can't think of any good reason for the tab to be there, and as I said it was repeatedly annoying to have to undo every time I took off the jacket.

The armpit area of the jacket is actually a soft textile instead of leather, which I expect is to improve the wearability of the jacket. The leather is extremely stiff, after all, and if all of the jacket were leather, I suspect it would cut into the wearer's armpits the same way the sleeves dug into my hands.

The back of the jacket has a very large reflective stripe running horizontally across the shoulders, which I like very much. This stripe also conceals a zipper underneath it, which gives you a rear vent when you need additional ventilation. Very nice.

The jacket contains some nicely-placed hand pockets at the sides, and another one on the left breast. The left breast pocket has some reflective piping along the top of it. I would prefer more, but that would also tend to make the jacket much more overstated, so I accept the balance that Aerostich has chosen here.

Inside the jacket, there's a fairly standard textile lining sewn in. There's an interior pocket as well, although I am having trouble remembering any details about it. A drawstring with toggles allows you to pull the waist in tighter, if necessary. Nice touch. There's also a zipper for attaching the matching pants (which I did not order). Presumably, any Aerostich pants would also zip in.

The sleeves have zippers at the ends so that they can be opened up somewhat, and then closed tightly with velcro closures to seal against wind and rain. The hand openings are actually fairly small with the zippers fully closed, though, so this is probably a gauntlet-out type of jacket.

The armor, as you would expect from Aerostich, is top-notch. Not much more needs to be said about that.

This is a really well-made jacket. All the stitching is superb. The construction and finish is superb. Even though this jacket is made for Aerostich in Vietnam (unlike their textile line, made here in the USA) the quality doesn't appear to have suffered at all.

In the end, though, it just didn't fit me. I honestly believe their sizing to be way, way off. Maybe my arms are too short, although I don't have problems with other jackets. The difference, of course, is that every other jacket I own has some give in the sleeves, where this jacket is unyieldingly stiff. It's not just limited to the sleeves, either. Just sitting on the bike, the tail of the jacket would hit the seat and cause the entire jacket to lift off my shoulders. These are fatal flaws for a daily-wear motorcycle jacket.

While Aerostich clearly goes to great lengths to facilitate the purchase of exotic motorcycle wear through the mail, I could have saved myself a lot of time and effort by just trying on a couple of sizes off the rack. As it is, this process took several months and cost both me and Aerostich several hundred dollars in shipping. Ouch.

I believe I read somewhere that a significant percentage of Aerostich's business is centered in the SF Bay Area. I will go out on a limb here and state that I think it would be in everyone's interest if Aerostich would follow Dainese's lead here and open a dedicated store in what is rumored to be one of their strongest markets. I might then be able to find something that fits me. In the absence of that, though, I think I'll stick with Dainese.